Abstract:

Embodiments of the present invention provide for transport and logical
channels to be used in wireless transmissions to and from mobile
stations. In some embodiments, a mapper may be used to dynamically or
statically map the transport channels to the physical channels. In some
embodiments, physical layers may receive bearer traffic in physical
channels and transmit the bearer traffic over corresponding radio
frequency carriers. Other embodiments may be described and claimed.

Claims:

1. An apparatus comprising:a media access control (MAC) sublayer
configured to map bearer traffic to a plurality of transport channels;a
mapper coupled to the MAC sublayer and configured to map the bearer
traffic, through the plurality of transport channels, to a plurality of
physical channels; anda plurality of physical layers coupled to the
mapper and configured to transmit the bearer traffic in the plurality of
physical channels over a plurality of radio frequency (RF) carriers, the
plurality of physical layers respectively corresponding to the plurality
of RF carriers.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the mapper is configured to
dynamically map the bearer traffic to the plurality of physical channels
according to a mapping criteria.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, further comprising:a resource control
sublayer coupled to the mapper and configured to control the mapper to
dynamically map the bearer traffic according to the mapping criteria.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the bearer traffic includes multicast
and/or broadcast (MC/BC) services and unicast services and the mapper is
further configured to map the bearer traffic according to a first mapping
scheme in which a first physical layer of the plurality of physical
layers receives both MC/BC services and unicast services or according to
a second mapping scheme in which the first physical layer receives only
MC/BC services and a second physical layer of the plurality of physical
layers receives only unicast services.

5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the mapper is configured to
dynamically select between the first mapping scheme or the second mapping
scheme according to a mapping criteria.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein bearer traffic directed to a
plurality of mobile stations is transmitted through an aggregation of at
least two RF carriers of the plurality of RF carriers.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the at least two RF carriers are
noncontiguous.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein a first RF carrier of the at least
two RF carriers is in a 700 Megahertz spectrum and a second RF carrier of
the at least two RF carriers is in a 2.5 Gigahertz spectrum.

9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the apparatus is configured to
operate in accordance with an Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers (IEEE) 802.16 standard.

10. A method comprising:mapping, with a media access control (MAC)
sublayer, bearer traffic to a plurality of transport channels;mapping,
with a mapper, the bearer traffic, through the plurality of transport
channels, to a plurality of physical channels; andtransmitting, with a
plurality of physical layers, the bearer traffic in the plurality of
physical channels over a plurality of radio frequency (RF) carriers, the
plurality of physical layers respectively corresponding to the plurality
of RF carriers.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein said mapping, with the mapper, further
comprises:dynamically mapping the bearer traffic to the plurality of
physical channels according to a mapping criteria.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:controlling the mapper with
a resource control sublayer.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the bearer traffic includes multicast
and/or broadcast (MC/BC) services and unicast services and said mapping,
by the mapper, further comprises:mapping the bearer traffic according to
a first mapping scheme in which a first physical layer of the plurality
of physical layers receives both MC/BC services and unicast services or
according to a second mapping scheme in which the first physical layer
receives only MC/BC services and a second physical layer of the plurality
of physical layers receives only unicast services.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein said mapping, by the mapper, further
comprises:selecting between the first mapping scheme or the second
mapping scheme according to a mapping criteria.

15. The method of claim 10, wherein said transmitting further
comprises:transmitting bearer traffic directed to a plurality of mobile
stations through an aggregation of at least two RF carriers of the
plurality of RF carriers.

16. A machine-accessible medium having associated instructions that, when
executed, results in a machine:receiving bearer traffic distributed among
a plurality of transport channels;mapping the bearer traffic to a
plurality of physical channels; andtransmitting, with a plurality of
physical layers, the bearer traffic in the plurality of physical channels
over a plurality of radio frequency (RF) carriers, the plurality of
physical layers respectively corresponding to the plurality of RF
carriers.

17. The machine-accessible medium of claim 16, wherein the associated
instructions, when executed, further results in the machine mapping the
bearer traffic by:mapping the bearer traffic to the plurality of physical
channels according to a mapping criteria.

18. The machine-accessible medium of claim 16, wherein the bearer traffic
includes multicast and/or broadcast (MC/BC) services and unicast services
and said mapping the bearer traffic further includes:mapping the bearer
traffic according to a first mapping scheme in which a first physical
layer of the plurality of physical layers receives both MC/BC services
and unicast services or according to a second mapping scheme in which the
first physical layer receives only MC/BC services and a second physical
layer of the plurality of physical layers receives only unicast services.

19. The machine-accessible medium of claim 16, wherein the plurality of RF
carriers include at least two RF carriers that are noncontiguous.

20. The machine-accessible medium of claim 16, wherein the associated
instructions, when executed, further results in the machine:receiving
control signals; andmapping the bearer traffic based at least in part on
said control signals.

Description:

FIELD

[0001]Embodiments of the present invention relate to the field of
broadband wireless access networks, and more particularly, to
dynamic/static mapping of transport channels to physical channels in
devices used in said broadband wireless access networks.

[0003]Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a 3rd
generation cellular technology based on cellular system standards
developed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). 3GPP
long-term evolution (LTE) is a project that aims to improve UMTS through
modifications and/or extensions that will result in release 8 of the UMTS
standards. These improvements seek to provide broadband wireless services
to mobile terminals.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0004]Embodiments of the present invention will be readily understood by
the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompanying
drawings. To facilitate this description, like reference numerals
designate like structural elements. Embodiments of the invention are
illustrated by way of example and not by way of limitation in the figures
of the accompanying drawings.

[0005]FIG. 1 illustrates a wireless communication system in accordance
with various embodiments of the present invention;

[0006]FIG. 2 illustrates transport channels in accordance with various
embodiments of the present invention;

[0007]FIG. 3 illustrates a multicarrier mapping scheme, where each radio
frequency (RF) carrier has multicast (or broadcast) services and unicast
services, in accordance with various embodiments of the present
invention;

[0008]FIG. 4 illustrates another multicarrier mapping scheme, where some
RF carriers may be dedicated to multicast (or broadcast) services and
others may be dedicated to unicast services exclusively, in accordance
with various embodiments of the present invention;

[0009]FIG. 5 illustrates a downlink mapping in accordance with various
embodiments of the present invention;

[0010]FIG. 6 illustrates an uplink mapping of transport channels to
physical channels in accordance with various embodiments of the present
invention;

[0011]FIG. 7 illustrates a protocol structure that may be used in a
wireless communication system for support of multiple RF carriers in
accordance with various embodiments of the present invention; and

[0012]FIG. 8 illustrates a computing device in accordance with various
embodiments of this invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0013]In the following detailed description, reference is made to the
accompanying drawings which form a part hereof wherein like numerals
designate like parts throughout, and in which is shown by way of
illustration embodiments in which the invention may be practiced. It is
to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and structural or
logical changes may be made without departing from the scope of the
present invention. Therefore, the following detailed description is not
to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of embodiments in
accordance with the present invention is defined by the appended claims
and their equivalents.

[0014]Various operations may be described as multiple discrete operations
in turn, in a manner that may be helpful in understanding embodiments of
the present invention; however, the order of description should not be
construed to imply that these operations are order dependent.

[0015]For the purposes of the present invention, the phrase "A and/or B"
means "(A), (B), or (A and B)." For the purposes of the present
invention, the phrase "A, B, and/or C" means "(A), (B), (C), (A and B),
(A and C), (B and C), or (A, B and C)."

[0016]The description may use the phrases "in an embodiment," or "in
embodiments," which may each refer to one or more of the same or
different embodiments. Furthermore, the terms "comprising," "including,"
"having," and the like, as used with respect to embodiments of the
present invention, are synonymous.

[0017]Embodiments of the present invention define a set of transport
channels, a set of physical channels, and various mappings of the
transport channels to physical channels in an OFDMA broadband wireless
access system. The mappings may provide that the transport channels are
statically (e.g., permanently) assigned to respective physical channels
or dynamically (e.g., temporarily or in a time-varying manner) assigned.
Further embodiments described herein provide the use of these transport
channels, physical channels, and mappings in multicarrier transmission
schemes, e.g., IEEE 802.16e-2005 and its evolution (e.g., IEEE 802.16m),
or other similar broadband radio access technologies.

[0018]FIG. 1 illustrates a wireless communication system 100 in accordance
with an embodiment of this invention. In this embodiment, the
communication system 100 is shown with three wireless communication
devices, e.g., base station 104, mobile station 108, and mobile station
112, communicatively coupled to one another via an over-the-air (OTA)
interface 116.

[0019]In various embodiments, the mobile stations 108 and 112 may be a
mobile computer, a personal digital assistant, a mobile phone, etc. The
base station 104 may be a fixed device or a mobile device that may
provide the mobile stations 108 and 112 with network access. The base
station 104 may be an access point, a base transceiver station, a radio
base station, a node B, etc.

[0020]The wireless communication devices 104, 108, and 112 may have
respective antenna structures 120, 124, and 128 to facilitate the
communicative coupling. Each of the antenna structures 120, 124, and 128
may have one or more antennas (two shown in antenna structure 120). An
antenna may be directional or omnidirectional antenna, including, e.g., a
dipole antenna, a monopole antenna, a patch antenna, a loop antenna, a
microstrip antenna or any other type of antenna suitable for
transmission/reception of radio frequency (RF) signals.

[0021]In various embodiments, the communication system 100 may be
compatible with any wireless communication standards including, e.g.,
cellular system standards, wireless computer network standards, etc. In
one embodiment, the wireless communication devices may operate in
accordance with the IEEE 802.16 standard (e.g., IEEE 802.16e-2005 and its
evolution (e.g., IEEE 802.16m)).

[0022]The base station 104 may have upper sublayers 132 that provide
bearer traffic to a MAC sublayer 136. The bearer traffic may be any type
of information that may pass through the base station 104 and be
transmitted over the OTA interface 116. The bearer traffic may be
arranged in data and control bearers. Bearer traffic may include
multicast and/or broadcast (MC/BC) services and unicast services.

[0023]The MAC sublayer 136, or MAC 136, may map the bearer traffic,
through a set of logical channels 140, to a set of transport channels 144
in a mapper 148. The mapper 148 may map the bearer traffic, through the
set of transport channels 144, to a set of physical channels 152 in a
plurality of physical layers (PHYs) 156. The mapper 148 may map the
bearer traffic among the physical channels 152 according to any of a
number of mapping schemes.

[0024]The PHYs 156 may transmit the bearer traffic in the physical
channels 152 over corresponding RF carriers of the OTA interface 116. An
RF carrier may be a discrete band of frequencies used to transmit
wireless bearer traffic. The RF carriers may be any of a variety of sizes
(e.g., bandwidths) and may be located in any of a variety of frequency
spectrums.

[0025]The base station 104 may support multicarrier deployment by being
capable of communicating with the mobile stations on more than one RF
carrier. The transport channels 144 and physical channels 152 may be
defined in a manner to take advantage of such a multicarrier deployment
to enable efficient support of large bandwidths. For example, one
instantiation of the MAC 136 may effectively utilize a 100 Megahertz
(MHz) bandwidth through the use of transport channels. Since an RF
carrier with 100 MHz continguous bandwidth may not be practically
available, the mapper 148 may distribute the bearer traffic, using
groupings of physical channels 152 and associated PHYs 156, among an
aggregation of a number of contiguous and/or noncontiguous RF carriers,
e.g., an aggregation of five 20 MHz RF carriers, to achieve an effective
bandwidth of 100 MHz.

[0026]The transport channels 144 may group bearer traffic according to how
and with what characteristics the bearer traffic is to be transferred
over the OTA interface 116 from the perspective of the MAC 136. This may
be differentiated from the logical channels 140, which may group bearer
traffic according to what type of information is in the bearer traffic,
and the physical channels 152, which may group the bearer traffic
according to how and with what characteristics the bearer traffic is
transferred over the OTA interface 116 from the perspective of the mapper
148 or PHYs 156.

[0027]FIG. 2 shows transport channels 200 in accordance with an embodiment
of the present invention. There may be two types of transport channels
200: dedicated channels 204 and common channels 208. Distinct physical
layer processing may be applied to each of these types of transport
channels 200.

[0028]The dedicated channels 204 may include unicast shared channels;
dedicated control channels; unicast pilot channels, and feedback
channels. A dedicated channel may be a point-to-point bidirectional
channel for conveying information between a particular mobile station and
a base station.

[0029]The common channels 208 may include ranging (also known as random
access) channels for initial ranging; multicast shared channels; control
channels; synchronization channels; ranging channels for periodic
ranging; configuration channels; paging channels; and multicast pilot
channels. A common channel may be a point-to-multipoint unidirectional
channel conveying information (e.g., signaling messages, control
messages, etc.) to all users in the coverage area of a base station. A
mobile station may not have to register with the base station in order to
receive traffic on the common channels.

[0030]A shared channel, which may be a dedicated channel or a common
channel, may be shared (or multiplexed) through time division multiplex
(TDM), frequency division multiplex (FDM), code division multiplex (CDM),
space division multiplex (SDM) schemes or combination of the above
schemes among a multitude of users.

[0033]The transport channels 200 shown in FIG. 2 may be defined for a
wireless communication device operating in accordance with the IEEE
802.16m standard. However, similar concepts may be adapted to other radio
access technologies, e.g., 3GPP LTE, in other embodiments. Furthermore,
other types and/or numbers of transport channels may be used in other
embodiments.

[0034]A physical channel may be defined as a manifestation of physical
resources (e.g., time, frequency, code, and space) and corresponding PHY
processing that may be used to transport bearer traffic to and/or from
one or more mobile stations via an OTA interface. Physical channels may
represent the actual PHY processing and its characteristics such as
channel coding/decoding, signal mapping/demapping, baseband
modulation/demodulation, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO)
processing, etc. on data and control signal bearers.

[0035]Physical channels may be defined in consideration of specific PHY
processing that may be performed on various types of bearer traffic. PHY
processing that may be performed differently from one type of bearer
traffic to another. This may include, but is not limited to, MIMO
schemes, modulation and coding schemes (MCS), hybrid-automatic repeat
request (H-ARQ), etc.

[0036]In one embodiment, the defined physical channels may include a
downlink physical broadcast channel (DL-PBCH); a downlink physical
control channel (DL-PCCH); a downlink physical data channel (DL-PDCH); an
uplink physical control channel (UL-PCCH); and an uplink physical data
channel (UL-PDCH).

[0037]The DL-PBCH may include, but is not limited to, bearer traffic such
as common control, multicast-broadcast, broadcast of system configuration
information, synchronization and system timing information. The DL-PCCH
and UL-PCCH may include, but is not limited to, bearer traffic such as
dedicated control. The DL-PDCH and UL-PDCH may include, but is not
limited to, bearer traffic such as user traffic. The uplink may use a
common control channel for random access (initial ranging), sounding,
acknowledgement and negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK), etc.

[0038]The DL-PBCH and the DL-PCCH may be separated due to differences
between physical layer processing of common and dedicated physical
control channels. For example, transmit-beamforming (TxBF) may be used
for dedicated control whereas it may not be used for common control, a
more robust MCS may be used for common control to increase reliability,
etc.

[0039]As briefly stated above, the mapper 148 may map bearer traffic to
the physical channels 152 according to any of a variety of mapping
schemes. The mapping schemes may be defined depending on how multicarrier
support in the base station or mobile station is defined.

[0040]FIG. 3 illustrates a multicarrier mapping scheme 300 in accordance
with various embodiments of the present invention. Mapping scheme 300
provides that transport channel groups 1-n 304 are respectively mapped to
physical channel groups 1-n 308 on a one-to-one basis. The physical
channel groups 1-n 308, each of which correspond to one PHY, may be
transmitted over respective RF carriers 1-n 312.

[0041]Each of the transport channel group and physical channel group
associations may include all of the bearer traffic being directed to a
corresponding group of mobile stations served by that particular RF
carrier. As such, each of the RF carriers 1-n 312 may include both MC/BC
services and unicast services.

[0042]Mapping scheme 300 may be utilized in a scenario where mobile
stations with different bandwidths may be associated with certain RF
carriers with similar bandwidths. For example, a 20 MHz mobile station
may be served by a 20 MHz RF carrier, a 10 MHz mobile station may be
served by a 10 MHz RF carrier, etc.

[0043]In some embodiments, as mentioned above, more than one RF carrier
(contiguous and/or noncontiguous) may be aggregated to deliver bearer
traffic to one or more mobile stations.

[0045]In the mapping scheme 400, some RF carriers may be dedicated to
MC/BC services (e.g., RF carrier 1), while others may be dedicated to
unicast services only (e.g., RF carriers 2-n). Thus, some physical
channels may not exist on certain RF carriers.

[0046]In some embodiments, RF carrier 1 may be in the 700 MHz spectrum
while at least one of the other RF carriers is in the 2.5 GHz spectrum.
These embodiments may take advantage of the 700 MHz spectrum being more
suitable to MC/BC service transmissions than the 2.5 GHz spectrum.

[0047]Mapping scheme 400 may be utilized in a load balancing scenario
across the network where additional RF carriers may be used to schedule
downlink or uplink traffic for mobile users capable of transmitting and
receiving over a wider bandwidths or multiple RF carriers.

[0048]It may be noted that in the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 4, the
control and/or signaling information may be included on each RF carrier
dedicated to MC/BC or unicast services. This may allow a mobile station
served by a particular RF carrier to receive all desired control or
signaling information (that is not otherwise conveyed through MC/BC
services received on RF carrier 1) on that particular RF carrier such as
ACK/NACK and channel quality feedback control channels that exist for
unicast services but not for MC/BC services.

[0049]FIG. 5 illustrates a DL mapping 500 in accordance with various
embodiments of the present invention. The DL Mapping 500 may include
transport channels 504 mapped to physical channel groups 1-n 504 for the
downlink. In particular, the DL mapping 500 provides that MC pilot
channels, MC shared channels, paging channels, synchronization channels,
common control channels, and configuration channels are mapped to
DL-PBCH; UC shared channels are mapped to DL-PDCH; and dedicated control
channels are mapped to DL-PCCH.

[0050]Each of the physical channel groups 1-n 504 may be transmitted over
a respective RF carrier of the RF carriers 1-n 508.

[0051]FIG. 6 illustrates a UL mapping 600 in accordance with various
embodiments of the present invention. The UL mapping 600 may include
physical channel groups 1-n 608 mapped to transport channels 604 for the
uplink. In particular, the UL mapping 600 provides that UL-PCCH is mapped
to the ranging channels, dedicated control channels, and feedback
channels; and the UL-PDCH is mapped to the unicast shared channels.

[0052]The DL mapping 500 and UL mapping 600 may be used in either of the
multicarrier mapping schemes discussed above (e.g., multicarrier mapping
scheme 300 or multicarrier mapping scheme 400) or in other mapping
schemes.

[0053]FIG. 7 illustrates a protocol structure 700 that may be used in a
wireless communication system in accordance with various embodiments of
the present invention. The control and data information of the bearer
traffic may flow through the protocol structure over parallel planes,
e.g., control plane 704 and data plane 708, depending on the type of
bearer.

[0054]Layer 2 712 of the structure 700 may include a resource control
sublayer (RCS) 716 (in the control plane 704 only); a convergence
sublayer (CS) 720 (in the data plane 708 only); a link control sublayer
724; a MAC sublayer 728; a security sublayer 732; and a mapper 736. It
may be noted that in some systems, these layer 2 sublayers may be
implicit or explicit. For example, the sublayers may be merely a soft
grouping or classification of the layer 2 functions into different groups
according to their characteristics.

[0055]Layer 1 740 of the structure 700 may include PHYs 1-n 744. At least
two of the PHYs of the PHYs 1-n 744 may include discrete components
(e.g., electronics, antennas, etc.) designed for modulating and
transmitting signals over respective RF carriers.

[0056]The RCS 716 (which may also be referred to as a radio resource
control (RRC)), may control the various functions with layers and/or
sublayers through control signals, provided directly or through a service
access point (C-SAP), as shown. Of particular relevance for the present
description, the RCS 716 may use control signals to control how the
mapper 736 maps the transport channels to the physical channels of the
PHYs 1-n 744.

[0057]In one embodiment, the RCS 716 may dynamically control the mapper by
distributing various services or traffic flows across different RF
carriers. The RCS 716 may provide these dynamic controls based at least
in part on mapping criteria. The mapping criteria could include, but is
not limited to, a configuration of the base station, load control and
balancing across RF carriers, and/or a deployment scenario.

[0058]FIG. 8 illustrates a computing device 800 capable of implementing a
wireless network device in accordance with various embodiments. As
illustrated, for the embodiments, computing device 800 includes processor
804, memory 808, and bus 812, coupled to each other as shown.
Additionally, computing device 800 includes storage 816, and
communication interfaces 820, e.g., a wireless network interface card
(WNIC), coupled to each other, and the earlier described elements as
shown.

[0059]Memory 808 and storage 816 may include in particular, temporal and
persistent copies of mapping logic 824, respectively. The mapping logic
824 may include instructions that when accessed by the processor 804
result in the computing device 800 performing mapping operations
described in conjunction with various wireless network devices in
accordance with embodiments of this invention. These mapping operations
include, but are not limited to, dynamically and/or statically mapping
transport channels to physical channels.

[0063]In various embodiments, storage 816 may be a storage resource
physically part of the computing device 800 or it may be accessible by,
but not necessarily a part of, the computing device 800. For example, the
storage 816 may be accessed by the computing device 800 over a network.

[0064]In various embodiments, computing device 800 may have more or less
components, and/or different architectures.

[0065]Although certain embodiments have been illustrated and described
herein for purposes of description of the preferred embodiment, it will
be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that a wide variety
of alternate and/or equivalent embodiments or implementations calculated
to achieve the same purposes may be substituted for the embodiments shown
and described without departing from the scope of the present invention.
This application is intended to cover any adaptations or variations of
the embodiments discussed herein. Therefore, it is manifestly intended
that embodiments in accordance with the present invention be limited only
by the claims and the equivalents thereof.